Fear of a reckoning simmers in Assad’s Alawite heartland

Noor stands trembling within the chill afternoon gentle of the courtyard, not from the chilly, however from worry.

Wearing her thick winter coat, she has come to make a grievance to the boys of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Syria’s new de-facto rulers, and the brand new legislation on the town.

She begins to cry as she explains that three days earlier, simply earlier than 9 within the night, armed males had arrived in a black van at her condo in an upscale neighbourhood of the town of Latakia. Alongside together with her youngsters and her husband, a military officer, she was compelled out onto the road in her pyjamas. The chief of the armed males then moved his family into her dwelling.

Noor – not her actual title – is Alawite, the minority sect from which the Assad household originates, and to which lots of the former regime’s political and army elite belonged. Alawites, whose sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam, make up round 10% of Syria’s inhabitants, which is majority Sunni. Latakia, on Syria’s north-west Mediterranean coast is their heartland.

As with different cities, an array of various insurgent teams have rushed into the facility vacuum left after Assad’s troopers deserted their posts. The regime had exploited sectarian divisions to take care of its grip on energy, now the Sunni Islamist HTS has pledged to respect all religions in Syria. However Latakia’s Alawite inhabitants is fearful.

Some folks have not even left their houses for the reason that regime change as a result of they fear that there shall be a reckoning, and that they must pay a heavy value for the assist of the outdated regime.

Noor reveals CCTV footage from her condo, to 34-year-old Abu Ayoub, HTS normal safety commander. Within the movie, a gaggle of bearded fighters, some carrying baseball caps and others in army fatigues, is pictured on her doorstep.

They aren’t from HTS, she says, however one other group, rebels from the northern metropolis of Aleppo.

“They broke down the door. There have been 10 militants at our door and 16 others ready down the road with three vehicles,” Noor tells Abu Ayoub. His males are largely from Idlib and Aleppo, the place the HTS and allied insurgent factions had been primarily based earlier than launching the offensive that overthew Assad three weeks in the past. They stand round in fight fatigues, holding their rifles and listening intently as she describes how the household’s belongings had been thrown into the road.

HTS was as soon as aligned with al-Qaeda and continues to be proscribed as a terror organisation by most Western international locations, though the UK and US say they’ve been involved with the group. In a matter of weeks, it has gone from enemy of the state to the legislation of the land. Abu Ayoub and his males are adjusting to the change in roles from revolutionaries to policemen.

Noor is just one of a protracted line of complainants who’ve come to their normal safety station with grievances. The bottom, the town’s former army intelligence headquarters, was maybe essentially the most feared place in Latakia. Now it’s a shambles, with damaged radios and tools scattered throughout the courtyard. Torn portraits of Bashar al-Assad lie within the dust.

A person joins the queue of these making complaints. He has a black eye, damaged ribs, and his shirt is torn and bloodied. He says males from Idlib had damaged into his condo.

“A few of them had been civilians, some wore army garments and had been masked,” he says. “They hit my daughter and aimed weapons at my son’s head. They stole cash, they stole gold.”

Each call-out here’s a present of power, particularly with so many armed teams within the metropolis. With the person’s son directing them, the HTS safety power drives to one of many poorer neighbourhoods, weaving by a warren of again streets, previous scrapyards and middens.

The armed police take up positions alongside the road and on the doorway of the condo. They create two suspects again to the station for questioning.

However they barely have time to clear their weapons when there’s one other grievance, a dispute over gasoline bottles that left one other man crushed.

He says three males had pulled weapons on him.

One other race within the vehicles to a crowded business and residential neighbourhood. When the police pull a suspect out into the road – his face nonetheless bloody from the sooner struggle – native girls come to their balconies and shout “Shabiha! Shabiha!”. They’re accusing the suspect of being a member of the shadowy militia power, largely fabricated from Alawite males, who did the Assad regime’s soiled work.

Since its lightning-fast sweep to victory throughout Syria, Islamist HTS has pledged to maintain the peace and shield the entire nation’s minorities. And each day Abu Ayoub has to make good on that pledge.

“Some infiltrators into the revolution, some saboteurs, and a few weak-minded individuals are profiting from the state of affairs within the areas that had been lately liberated,” he says.

Abu Ayoub admits the state of affairs within the metropolis was “a bit chaotic” however turns his consideration to Noor. “We’re right here now, we weren’t right here when the military left. We had been initially in Damascus after which we got here. They’re thugs, and we’ll evict them from your home. We’ll return your belongings. You might have my phrase,” he stated. And with that he orders his males into their pickup vehicles and with sirens blaring they head for the condo.

Latakia is a metropolis liberated. Final Friday, tens of 1000’s of individuals from all sects, gathered on the streets to have a good time the downfall of the Assad dynasty. In a metropolis sq., they sat atop the plinth the place the statue of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father – who dominated for 29 years earlier than his loss of life in 2000 – as soon as stood, and joyfully waved the flag of a free Syria.

The message that day was unity, of 1 Syria, with out sectarian division. However after half a century of tyrannical rule from a regime which fanned sectarian hatred and warned that Alawites can be massacred in the event that they ever misplaced energy, it’s an adjustment to say the least.

On Saturday, three HTS fighters had been killed, and 14 injured outdoors the town, in what it stated was gun battle with a legal gang. HTS, which is attempting to take care of calm, claims there was no sectarian aspect to the assault.

On the best way to Noor’s condo, the HTS convoy velocity by the streets and passersby cheer them and flash the peace signal.

The brand new Syrian flag, with its inexperienced as an alternative of purple stripe, and three purple stars as an alternative of two inexperienced, is commonplace on store shutters and hanging from balconies. However in Alawite areas, folks largely watch in silence because the convoy strikes alongside. There are fewer new flags in proof.

Azam al-Ali, 28, an HTS safety officer from Deir al-Bitter in japanese Syria sits within the entrance seat. After a lot oppression, he says, it can take time for folks to belief authority once more.

“A lot of the oppressed that include complaints are from two sects, the Sunni and the Alawite. We don’t differentiate. However the excessive poverty that this regime left behind brought on this huge chaos,” he tells me because the site visitors components for the convoy.

And he notes that Alawites, a few of whom had been among the many poorest in Syria, suffered too underneath the Assad regime.

We arrive at Noor’s condo and half a dozen armed HTS males hurry up the steps.

The girl behind the door refuses to open up, however after some negotiation the door opens, and she or he and her household are ordered to depart. Noor goes in to retrieve some garments and books for her daughter who’s finding out for exams. Weapons and ammunition belonging to the insurgent squatters are confiscated.

“After I went to HTS at present I used to be terrified,” says Noor. “Their look was so intimidating and horrifying. Truthfully, although, they had been very good.”

However she will not be returning to the condo. One nightmare has led to Syria, and for Alawites, one other has begun, she says.

As she clutches her belongings, Noor says she not feels protected in her dwelling.

“It is inconceivable for me to reside right here once more. I do have hope, however not within the close to future. In the meanwhile I do not dare.”